


Taleggio

by hitlikehammers



Series: Chymosin [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Reclaiming Himself, Bucky Barnes is a Good Man, Bucky's First Outing as an Avenger, Fluff, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective!Steve, Romance, Running Into Someone From The Old Days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 22:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2126799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's testing the waters of being his own man, his own soldier: a part of a team again. A part of the <i>world</i> again. Being part of something <i>real</i> with <i>Steve</i> again. So he doesn't plan on running into them, these pieces of a life he's still fitting back together.</p><p>But it's a damned good thing that he does.</p><p> </p><p>  <span class="small">( Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2078256"> Impastata </a>, featuring two lovely ladies from the old neighborhood reprising their roles as facilitators of Bucky Barnes' (and Steve Rogers') coping with a century's worth of horrors. But also love. ) </span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Taleggio

**Author's Note:**

> For every one of you lovelies who wanted to see the boys with these gals one more time <3
> 
> My thanks to [TeddyLaCroix](http://archiveofourown.org/users/readyplayerzero) for all the EPIC CHEERLEADING and to [speakmefair](http://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair) for the swift read-through.

“Hostages on Bowery,” Nat’s voice trails through the comm: “Subway station.”

Bucky’s close, coming down Canal.

“On it.”

He can hear Steve’s breath heave through the earpiece, and he knows now, that it’s Steve—he’s learned; he remembers what Steve sounds like when he breathes.

“Buck—”

“Only say it to me if you’re going to do it yourself, punk,” Bucky cuts him off, and waits a beat.

Another.

Another.

“Be careful.” It’s grudging, but it’s also genuine, and Bucky can’t help the grin that curls his lips beneath the mask.

“Always.”

It doesn’t take him long to ghost through the tunnels, to perch out of sight, silent from a vantage point even Barton wouldn’t sneer at. He’s surveying the scene, pinning targets and civilians and letting JARVIS run scenarios before his eyes on the inside of the goggles just that little bit faster, freeing up just enough of even a supersoldier’s working memory for him to catch the low-hiss of a conversation from the corner of the platform, huddled low in the shadows near the foot of the escalator.

“God _damnit_ , Ma.” 

“Language!” Bucky can’t help but smirk just a little at the sheer disapproval in the whisper that may as well have been a scream for how forceful it is, how little anyone who heard it would be interested in crossing the tiny, age-hunched frame it spews from. 

“Couldn’t have just gone with a cab—”

“I _just_ got rid of that damned walker, young lady,” Bucky can read the indignant slant of the shoulders on the elder of the two women. “I was damn well going to enjoy a ride courtesy of my beloved MTA.”

“Senile, ma,” the daughter hisses back. “Senile’s what they call that sort of thinking. And look where it got us, look at what—”

“Quiet!”

One of the three hostiles—all ski-masks and zero finesse—cries out, and shoots the weapon in his hand toward the tracks in demonstration; and that’s the reason Bucky’s here, that’s the reason they were called, because that gun’s not from Earth, and these assclowns have taken prisoners across New York with alien technology.

Bucky’s only out here with them because they needed his hands, his eye: there was no more time for putting off his debut in the field.

For better or worse.

“Everybody, shut the _fuck_ up,” Asshat Number Two piggybacks on his partner’s display, shouting over the terrified yelping of his hostages. “Or we start sacrificin’!”

Fuck all, Bucky thinks. It’s that goddamned Bat-Warrior movie all over again, staged in the flesh, but with shittier acting. And way worse masks.

And fuck Tony for making them watch that thing. Seriously.

But then, y’know, on the other hand: don’t—because Bucky _did_ get to live out all the fantasies that had blissfully come bleeding back into his memory from days gone by, where he’d watched a smaller Steve in a different time out the corner of his eye, studied the way the pictures on the screen played light across his features and damn well _ached_ to reach _out_ —

Bucky’d gotten to live out those fantasies, and so many more, more than once, in the dark of Stark’s private cineplex. So, right. Fine. Make them suffer Tony’s “cultural education” projects.

Bucky can cope with that.

But _anyway_. Task at hand.

Bucky lines up the shot; breathes in. Breathes out.

“We need ‘em to talk, J?” he asks, the sound contained to the interior of the mask as he confers with the AI he’s grown strangely fond of. “Or we need ‘em not to talk?”

“At your discretion, Sergeant,” JARVIS answers, and Bucky breathes in, breathes out.

At his discretion.

Right.

“Mom,” he hears below him, but doesn’t move, doesn’t look, doesn’t blink: “Mom, are you ok—”

“Hush, baby,” the older woman whispers. “Something’s coming, now.”

 _Something’s coming_ , Bucky thinks. At _his_ discretion, something is coming.

There’s been enough blood, he thinks, if not at his discretion, than damn well at his hands.

He’s got the leeway, now—he’s got the freedom here to choose.

Bucky breathes in.

Breathes out.

“Mom—”

Bucky’s got the three shots made in less time than it takes for his heart to squeeze out the blood it’s been pooling, and while there are screams and there is scrambling and there is chaos, there are three bodies on the ground.

There are three bodies on the ground, and there is no collateral damage.

“I need cover from the mezzanine up,” Bucky barks across the comm as he checks the vitals of his targets in rapid succession: alive, heavily sedated, hit with a short-term paralytic of Bruce’s design.

Discretion, Bucky thinks. S’a nice thing to exercise.

To have the _choice_ to exercise.

It’s terrifying. But it’s real fucking nice.

“Jolly Green Giant’s en route,” Stark comes in over the uplink.

Bucky smirks. Speak of the good doctor himself.

“Copy.”

“Mom!”

Bucky spins on his heel, gaze narrowed through the display that labels the source of the sound “Civilian; Non-Threat”—the women huddled near the escalator. The women from before. The women by the escalator that’s no longer in service. 

The women. 

The women. The woman who wanted a ride on the subway. The woman who’d just gotten rid of her walker, the woman— 

“God, mom, it’s…” and the younger—not by much, not _young_ , but still—the younger of the last of the hostages is staring at him; she looks faint, looks _petrified_ and it’s not like Bucky’s not used to it, it’s not that Bucky’s not familiar with the reaction, but like this, in the _now_ —

Fuck, but it stings.

“It’s him,” she breathes out. “That’s the Winter Soldier. We have to get out of here, we have to—”

And Bucky can see the pulse in her throat, and his first thought is _god, for a woman her age, that cannot be healthy_, he needs to stop it, he _needs_ —

“Mom, it’s, he, all the files, after—”

But he looks at them. He studies them, closely: these women. And he knows. 

He _knows_.

“Shh,” the elder of them hushes, soft and gentle and so warm as she strokes her daughter’s arms; and her eyes on Bucky are gracious; her eyes on Bucky are a balm. “Geanie, baby, we don’t have anything to worry about, here.”

And her eyes on Bucky, now, pierce right through him, irises of her eyes straight into his.

“Trust me,” she murmurs, and Bucky nearly shivers, nearly sobs: “Time doesn’t change a good soul.”

Jesus Christ, he _knows_ these women. Before. Since.

Neighbors. Sickness. Pizza. 

Jesus _Christ_.

Bucky approaches, but pauses, stops halfway because while Mrs. Wayland—sweet Mrs. Wayland, just a few years older than him back then, way back _then_.

“Ma’am,” Bucky says, ducks his head just a little, not that he’d admit it. “Can I,” he swallows, and thinks to slip his goggles off, to unhook the mask.

“Can I offer you a hand?” he chances a glance at the daughter—Geanie, little _Gee_ , staring at him with wide eyes, less fear, thank _god_ ; less _fear_ ; “Both of you?”

“Manners,” Mrs. Wayland, who’d sneaked them rent money when they’d been short, who’d kept them afloat, who’d looked in on Steve when Bucky was at the docks, Mrs. _Wayland_ —

“I always thought you were a prize in that regard, when you wanted to be,” lovely Mrs. Wayland, who’s wrinkled, now, but her eyes still shine the same.

“But dear _lord_ , James Buchanan Barnes,” she says with a cheeky grin that almost, _almost_ makes Bucky want to grin as wide right back: “What _would_ your mother say about that hair?”

Bucky stutters. Bucky stammers.

Bucky stops.

“I…”

“Cut it,” Mrs. Wayland nods knowingly, but still fucking _cheeky_. “That’s what she’d say, your ma.” Her grin turns fond, then, and Bucky thinks that’s even better as she reaches out; as Bucky doesn’t flinch—doesn’t fucking _flinch_ when she brushes at his fringe.

“I think it suits you, though.” She smiles broadly. “What does your Captain think about it?”

Bucky feels like he’s swallowed a jar of peanut butter, in that moment—it’s not unpleasant, exactly, not like the splint between his teeth in the cold: it’s not _unpleasant_ , and he’s _warm_ , Jesus, but he _cannot fucking speak_.

“Oh, sweetie,” Mrs. Wayland pats his cheek with a smile. “That’s answer enough. Don’t you touch that hair for the life of you,” she fluffs the stray strands from the back to the front, and still, _still_ : he _does not flinch_. “Just keep leaving that bit to him.”

Oh Jesus. _Jesus_.

“Awfully sweet of you, dear,” Mrs. Wayland changes the subject with complete certitude, while Bucky’s face is still flaming, and fuck, _fuck_ : if Bucky needed proof that the Winter Soldier is no longer the be all and end all of his being, here it is, he’s fucking _blushing_. “Taking care of those monsters.”

“Bucky Barnes.” And both Bucky and Mrs. W turn to baby—not baby, not baby anymore, but _always_ baby Geanie— as she gapes at them, as she tries to make sense of the scene before her eyes: “Jesus _Christ_.”

“Not really one and the same, but much obliged,” Bucky picks up the line with a level of snark that Tony’d be proud of; that he’s not sure he’s comfortable with _yet_ , but he’s getting there: “Little Gee.”

And Bucky—because Bucky is and isn’t a sniper, an assassin, Bucky is and isn’t but he’ll _always_ be watching, be entirely aware of everything around him unless there’s Steve, and when there’s Steve he is compromised, he is drawn to that ebb and flow of that single man’s existence like nothing else, but that’s not _here_ , that’s not now, that’s not the now in which he _sees_ : Bucky watches the way that Geanie Wayland’s eyes get big, start to water, start to quiver as she walks carefully, hesitantly toward Bucky, as she takes his hands and he lets her, as he reaches out before he can stop himself and swipes the tears that leak away from her time-tinned skin, and it’s the same, it’s different but the _same_ as when she was a baby, when he held her, when he dried her tears back then.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and grips his forearms tight.

“My pleasure,” he breathes, and he can feel the way she shakes; he can feel it, and it’s above, or below, maybe: it’s somewhere beyond his realm of processing thought that’s decides it, that makes it clear that he needs to grasp her shoulders and not hold her, exactly, but show her compassion. Show her warmth.

It is secondary: the acknowledgement that he seems to know himself to be capable of showing, of _sharing_ such things, but he is.

He is. That’s _something_ ; God _Almighty_.

“Do you still remember?” Geanie asks him, and though her voice still wavers, her body doesn’t, and Bucky thinks that’s a win, somehow, some way.

He quirks a brow at her in askance, and she smiles, however thin:

“How to dance so well?”

Bucky opens his mouth to speak, but he’s not fast enough:

“He does.”

They all turn, all three of them, and take in the broad form of Captain America himself at the bottom of the stopped-steps of the escalator.

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky breathes out, silences the quick-rise of adrenaline in his veins: there’s no threat here, not in _this_. “The hell you doing here?”

“You called for cover,” Steve shrugs, as nonchalant as he can be. “Bruce got caught up.”

Thing is, Steve was never a very good liar. Better part of a century didn’t change that fact.

“Sure he did,” Bucky drawls a little, and ignores—except no, he doesn’t ignore it, he takes it, holds it, _relishes_ —the way that Steve flushes, just a little beneath the mask.

“Nat’s gonna clean this up?” Steve tries to sidestep, and Bucky swallows soft around the flutter of his pulse, the joy that settles in his chest.

“Like I’d deny her the pleasure,” Bucky quips. “They’ll have another few hours under, though,” he nods at the bastards still out cold on the ground. “No worries there.”

Steve nods back, satisfied, then turns to the women in their company.

“Hey Geanie,” he smiles at the woman still close to Bucky, but no longer clinging to his arms. “Mrs. Wayland, ma’am,” he nods at the elder of their company, and Bucky can see him, clear as day: skinny, wild, beautiful.

Not so much has really changed.

“Little Stevie Rogers,” Mrs Wayland says slowly, deliberate: approving. “The world does turn in the strangest blessed ways, doesn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” and Steve nods, but Bucky can feel the eyes on him, can feel Steve gaze, and god, _god_ , but it’s so _warm_ : “Yes, ma’am, sometimes it does.”

Bucky swallows. Breathes.

Regroups.

“Shall we, ladies?” Bucky asks, extending an arm to Geanie, which she takes, and Steve follows suit, offering a hand to Mrs. Wayland.

“May I?” Steve asks sweetly, and Mrs. Wayland damn near swoons.

Steve glances at Bucky from under his lashes as he bends to hook Mrs. Wayland’s arms in his own, and fuck: _Bucky_ damn near swoons.

That bastard.

“Your momma’s a sharp lady,” Bucky tells Geanie as he leads her up the steps. “Always was.” And Geanie doesn’t need his help—is spry and fit for her age, but she obliges, she lets Bucky guide her up, and Bucky didn’t know, Bucky couldn’t have predicted or expected or _hoped_ for just how much it means, the way her grip on his flesh makes him feel human, makes him feel _worth_ some kind of _trust_.

Makes him feel like maybe, just _maybe_ , he’s worth _Steve_ ; or could be.

Some day.

“Let her ride the subway ‘til she can’t, okay?,” Bucky murmurs, strokes a thumb over the crease of Gee’s elbow. “ I’ll keep an eye on the J train myself.” 

Geanie looks at him with a twinkle her eye, with a certain kind of marveling, and Bucky has to look away for the way that it courses through him, gorgeous and unforgiving; only catches the way she nods in his peripheral vision as he clears his throat, forces himself to say the rest.

“And the pizzas,” he mutters to the ground as they step toward ground level. “The pizza, we’ll take care of it, let her have as much pizza as she wants. Every day, if she wants it. Three times a day. _Five_ times a day,” Bucky breathes out, slow and weary, but honest: “Whatever.”

Sunlight’s on them by the time he realizes Gee’s not stepping upward with him; he turns. She stares.

“Well, hell,” she gapes, grinning in nothing less than wonder. “She was right, wasn’t she?”

And Bucky doesn’t know, not for sure, what she means.

But he can _hope_.

“And you’re taking good care of your boy, there?” Bucky hears, floating up from below as Steve walks a slower path with Mrs. Wayland, up the stairs.

“I do my best,” Steve replies. “Don’t think I’ll ever manage to do for him what he’s done for me, but,” he pauses, and something tight seizes through Bucky’s chest as he listens to the way Steve’s voice grows sad, grows faint, grows earnest in a way that _Steve_ should never have to know. 

“I try,” Steve breathes out, desperate but _certain_ , determined in a way Bucky doesn’t know he could ever grasp, ever own; “with everything I’ve got.”

“And you’ve got a helluva lot, Stevie Rogers,” Mrs. W takes the words right from Bucky’s mouth, and that’s heavy and perfect in Bucky’s gut in a way beyond reckoning: that it’s known, that other people _know_ what a gift _Steve Rogers_ —not Captain America, not a paragon, not an Avenger or a Star-Spangled Man with a Plan—but _Steve_ fucking _Rogers_ , a gift from God above: he is a gift and a joy and a privilege beyond reckoning.

And it’s not just Bucky who _knows_ it. 

“That’s more’n enough,” Mrs. Wayland carries on. “I don’t know that there’s a single person, living or dead, that could give like that boy gave to you, back when giving was...” 

Bucky wants to open his mouth, wants to protest, because Steve is more than him, Steve is _everything_ —but Steve’s breath hitches below him, just barely, maybe soft enough that it’s only Bucky he hears it, who can tell: but Steve’s breath hitches, and Bucky can’t hardly breathe.

“So don’t think that it’s a fault if you feel like you can’t quite match it,” Mrs. Wayland’s saying softly as them climb, slow but sure. “It’s not about matching, there’s not a score to keep when there’s love.”

And they’ve said it. 

They have said it. Not often. Not softly, not _easily_ : but they’ve said it.

That’s how Bucky knows it, so keenly, when it catches in the thumping of his pulse, just so.

“Don’t forget to tell him,” Mrs. Wayland says, and Bucky looks, now, behind him: Bucky looks at the way that she pats Steve’s arm, at the way Steve’s eyes give him away as they raise up and meet Bucky’s own.

“Don’t forget to tell him that there’s so much _love_ , yes?”

And Steve’s watching him, eyes shining. And Bucky’s heart feels damn near fit to collapsing, to bursting forth and proving everything that’s happened wrong in a single, explosive declaration of need for one man, one other heart in the whole goddamned world, across all of time: and he wonders.

He wonders if Steve can read that in his gaze just as clear as it shivers in his veins.

“Some things go without saying, but,” and Steve blinks, looks down, watches their feet as he leads Mrs. Wayland to ground, and he looks surprised when the woman takes his face into her hands.

“They shouldn’t,” she whispers to him. “Not really.” And she glances toward Bucky, locks eyes upon him just so. 

“They’re so much better when they’re said.”

Bucky thinks, in that moment, that it’s true; that the only words he knows are of Steve, in Steve, for Steve.

“Good souls,” Mrs. Wayland grins, knowingly as she watches them both at once, somehow. “Good souls deserve the best they can get.”

And Bucky doesn’t know how it’s possible, but he knows: he _knows_ that she’s speaking of him, too.

“Coffee.”

The word rattles Bucky, and he turns to Steve, who’s the one who said it; who’s looking like he’s just as surprised by the outburst as anyone.

“You should,” he stammers, off-kilter, unmoored, and Bucky’s never loved him more than he does, here and now: Bucky’s always loved him this much, _so_ much—more than he can say or hold.

“You should come to the Tower,” Steve manages, after a moment. “For, coffee. Or tea. Or whatever you like. We should,” he looks to Bucky for confirmation, for anchoring, and Jesus— _Bucky_ is Steve’s anchor.

Bucky is Steve’s anchor in the _now_.

“And pizza,” Bucky finds himself saying, finds himself tacking on yet, leading, if Steve’s gratful grin is anything to by, if the warmth in Bucky’s stomach at the sight of it is anything to trust. “We could,” he swallows, and Gee’s eyes are shining, and Mrs. Wayland’s face is lit with joy.

“We could also have pizza.”

And there’s a future here, Bucky thinks; there is a future, and there is a past.

And there’s _Steve_.

And it’s _perfect_.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi [on tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com/), if you dig :)


End file.
